In June 2019 the Supreme Court refused the Government permission to reverse the Court of Appeal’s December 2018 judgment in the McCloud and Sargeant cases.

The judgement found that both the judges’ and firefighters’ pension schemes became unfavourable to some of their members when the career average arrangement was introduced in 2015. The courts deemed that younger members of the judicial and firefighters’ pension schemes had been discriminated against because the transitional protection applied only to older scheme members.

These regulation changes need to be rectified on the grounds of age discrimination and applies to all main public service pension schemes, including the Teachers’ Pension Scheme.

The first consultation on the proposals to address the discrimination closed on 11 October 2022.

The second consultation, which set out how the Department for Education proposed to implement the remedy approach for those affected, closed on 4 June 2023. 

Please read our factsheet (PDF, 70 KB) (This link opens in a new window) on the background to Transitional Protection. We also have a short myth buster (This link opens in a new window) to help you understand the changes. Or you may want to watch our Scheme changes video (This link opens in a new window).